Top Science News

June 28, 2026

Top Headlines

Only One Workout Helped Older Adults Lose Fat Without Losing Muscle

June 28, 2026 A six-month study of more than 120 adults in their 70s found that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) may offer a key advantage over other forms of exercise: it helped reduce body fat while preserving valuable muscle mass. While moderate and ...

James Webb Uncovers Exotic Salt Clouds on a Mysterious Pink World

June 28, 2026 Astronomers have finally cracked the mystery of the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world 57 light-years away that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers discovered that its atmosphere ...

Common Pesticide Linked to More Than Double the Risk of Parkinson’s Disease

June 28, 2026 Scientists at UCLA have linked long-term exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos with a sharply increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. People exposed to the chemical near their homes were more than ...

Hawaii Is Turning Ocean Plastic and Fishing Nets Into Roads

June 28, 2026 Hawaii researchers are giving old fishing nets and recycled plastic a second life by mixing them into asphalt roads. Early tests found these roads didn't release more plastic particles than standard pavement, with tire wear overwhelming any plastic ...

Massive Study Links Teen Marijuana Use to Double the Risk of Serious Mental Illness

June 27, 2026 Teens who use cannabis may face a substantially greater risk of developing serious mental health conditions, including psychotic and bipolar disorders, according to a study of more than 463,000 ...

Yellowstone’s Supervolcano May Be Fueled by Something Unexpected

June 27, 2026 Scientists have uncovered a new explanation for what powers Yellowstone and other supervolcanoes. Instead of a deep plume rising from near Earth’s core, a broad “mantle wind” may push hot rock beneath Yellowstone, generating magma closer to ...

Mountain Lions Changed Everything in This Tiny California Preserve

June 27, 2026 A surprising ecological makeover unfolded when mountain lions began frequenting a small preserve south of San Francisco. Deer activity dropped, plants recovered, and shifts among predators like coyotes, bobcats, and foxes followed. The study shows ...

A Rare Supernova Peeled Back a Star’s Layers and Revealed a Hidden Secret

June 27, 2026 Astronomers studying the rare supernova SN 2021yfj discovered material from one of the deepest layers of a dying star, providing a rare look at its hidden interior. The finding confirms key theories about how massive stars forge the elements that ...

New Vitamin B12 Therapy Shows Promise Against Deadly Brain Cancer

June 27, 2026 Researchers have identified a vitamin B12–based compound that can cross the blood-brain barrier and home in on glioblastoma tumors. In animal studies, the compound accumulated preferentially in tumor tissue and delivered sustained nitric oxide ...

Scientists Discover What Triggers Belly Fat as We Age

June 27, 2026 Aging may trigger the appearance of specialized stem cells that supercharge the body's ability to create new belly fat. The discovery reveals a potential biological driver of middle-age weight gain and a promising target for future anti-obesity ...

Astronomers Found Two Rare Super Puff Planets Lighter Than Cotton Candy

June 26, 2026 Two newly confirmed "super-puff" planets are so diffuse that they are less dense than cotton candy, despite being about the size of Jupiter. Their rare orbital relationship and enormous, lightweight atmospheres could provide valuable clues about how ...

Scientists Stunned by Signs of Ancient Life in a Place No One Expected

June 26, 2026 Scientists exploring ancient seafloor rocks in Morocco discovered mysterious wrinkle patterns where they were never expected to occur. These structures are normally linked to microbial mats in shallow, sunlit waters, yet the rocks formed hundreds of ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:36pm EDT

Butter and Margarine Look Similar but Their Chemistry Changes Everything

June 26, 2026 The battle between butter and margarine comes down to chemistry. Butter’s naturally occurring fats create rich flavors, golden browning, and flaky baked goods, while margarine’s modified plant ...

From Pet to Pest, Goldfish Can Wreck Entire Ecosystems

June 26, 2026 A new study reveals that goldfish can do far more than survive in the wild—they can fundamentally reshape freshwater ecosystems. Researchers found they cloud water, damage food webs, and hurt ...

Researchers Discover Why Fructose Doesn't Satisfy Hunger Like Glucose

June 26, 2026 A new study found that fructose and glucose may look the same on a nutrition label, but the brain treats them very differently. In mice, glucose strongly reduced activity in hunger-promoting brain ...

A “ghost” Great White Shark Just Reignited a 160-Year Mediterranean Mystery

June 26, 2026 The capture of a juvenile great white shark in Spain has provided fresh evidence that the Mediterranean's elusive "ghost" population of great whites ...

This Newly Discovered Ballista Spider Catapults Ants Into a Deadly Trap

June 26, 2026 Scientists have discovered a “ballista spider” that builds a spring-powered silk trap designed specifically to catch aggressive green tree ants. The ant unknowingly triggers the mechanism itself, ...

Earth May Have Been Seeding Venus With Life for Billions of Years

June 25, 2026 A new study suggests Earth may have been sending tiny hitchhikers to Venus for billions of years. Researchers found that asteroid impacts could launch microbes into space, where some might survive ...

Einstein Probe May Have Caught a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf for the First Time

June 25, 2026 Astronomers may have witnessed one of the rarest and most dramatic cosmic events ever seen: a long-sought intermediate-mass black hole ripping apart ...

This Common Vitamin Deficiency Can Mimic Normal Aging

June 25, 2026 Vitamin B12 is needed in microscopic amounts, but a shortage can have major effects on health and energy. The vitamin was first linked to a lifesaving liver treatment for pernicious anemia nearly 100 ...

FDA-Approved Drug May Finally Help Immunotherapy Defeat Rare Liver Cancer

June 25, 2026 Researchers found that a rare liver cancer evades immunotherapy by luring immune T cells away from the tumor and trapping them in nearby fibrous tissue. An FDA-approved drug called AMD3100 freed ...

Scientists Discover How a Single Cell Builds a Brain With 170 Billion Cells

June 25, 2026 How does a single cell build a brain with billions of precisely organized neurons? Researchers suggest that brain cells use their lineage—their cellular family tree—as a kind of positional map. ...

Scientists Discover Ancient Brain Cells That Help Block Distractions

June 24, 2026 Scientists have discovered a tiny group of neurons in an ancient brain region that acts like a built-in focus filter, helping the brain ignore distractions and zero in on what matters most. When ...

Scientists Finally Solved How H5N1 Bird Flu Hid in Dairy Cows

June 23, 2026 Researchers uncovered why H5N1 bird flu attacks cows’ udders instead of their lungs: the virus’s preferred receptors are concentrated in mammary tissue. The breakthrough could help scientists ...

The Secret Language Behind Animal Cooperation

June 20, 2026 Animals from different species often rely on surprisingly sophisticated communication to work together, whether finding food, cleaning parasites, or gaining protection. New research suggests these ...

NASA’s Lucy Finds a Wobbling Peanut-Shaped Asteroid With Signs of Ancient Water

June 25, 2026 NASA’s Lucy spacecraft discovered that asteroid Donaldjohanson is a wobbling, peanut-shaped relic born from a violent collision and slowly reshaped by the subtle force of sunlight. It also carries ...

Scientists Discover Neurons Must Break Their DNA to Build the Brain

June 21, 2026 As newborn neurons make their way through the developing brain, they must squeeze through incredibly tight spaces to reach their final destinations. Researchers discovered that this physical journey ...

Scientists Expected a Black Hole but Found a Neutrino Factory Powered by Stars

June 19, 2026 A distant galaxy nicknamed Shadow Blaster may have revealed a surprising source of cosmic neutrinos: extreme star formation instead of a supermassive black hole. The discovery suggests that hidden, ...

Researchers Found a Wordle Strategy That Wins 99% of the Time

June 19, 2026 Researchers developed a Wordle-solving strategy that succeeds 99% of the time by focusing on information gain rather than likely answers. The method uses Shannon entropy to identify guesses that ...

Scientists Reprogram Brain Immune Cells to Fight Alzheimer’s

June 19, 2026 A newly identified molecule called OLE helped restore the brain’s immune cells to a more protective state in Alzheimer’s models. The treatment reduced toxic plaque buildup and improved memory, ...

Ancient DNA Reveals Plague Was Already Killing Humans 5,500 Years Ago

June 18, 2026 Plague was already a deadly killer 5,500 years ago, long before cities, farming, or the rat-infested conditions usually linked to historic outbreaks. By analyzing ancient DNA from hunter-gatherer ...

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Is Creating One of the Weirdest Forms of Matter in Space

June 23, 2026 NASA’s upgraded Cold Atom Lab is turning the International Space Station into a frontier for quantum research, creating ultra-cold matter that behaves in astonishing ways. The experiments could ...

Butterfly That Barely Ages Could Help Unlock Longevity Secrets

June 22, 2026 Scientists discovered that Heliconius butterflies have evolved an extraordinary lifespan, living several times longer than closely related species. Even more surprising, some show little sign of ...

Early Humans Were Bringing Fire Into Caves 1.8 Million Years Ago

June 24, 2026 A new study suggests early humans were using fire in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave as far back as 1.79 million years ago. Researchers found burned bones deep inside the cave, where natural ...

Future Astronauts Could Walk Across Rocks from Deep Inside the Moon

June 22, 2026 A colossal ancient collision may have left some of the Moon’s deepest secrets surprisingly close to future Artemis landing sites. By recreating the impact that formed the giant South Pole-Aitken ...

Black Hole Winds May Be Robbing Giant Galaxies of Their Future Stars

June 19, 2026 Astronomers may be closing in on a long-standing cosmic mystery: why some of the universe’s biggest galaxies seem to have far fewer stars than expected. Using NASA- and JAXA-supported XRISM ...

On the Brink of Extinction, the Vaquita Gets a Digital Lifeline

June 17, 2026 Scientists have digitally preserved the world’s most endangered marine mammal by creating highly detailed 3D models of a vaquita skeleton using advanced imaging technology. The virtual archive ...

Scientists Found a Way to Explain Bird Flocks That “defy” Newton’s Third Law

June 16, 2026 Physicists have solved a long-standing problem involving systems that appear to violate Newton’s third law, such as bird flocks and bacterial swarms. By adding carefully designed “imaginary ...

Millipedes Beat Vertebrates to Land by 80 Million Years

June 14, 2026 Millipedes may have been crawling across Earth's landscapes nearly 460 million years ago, long before vertebrates ventured onto land. A new study finally completes their evolutionary family ...

New Study Explores Potential Cross-Species Spread of Chronic Wasting Disease

June 16, 2026 A new study found that chronic wasting disease can sometimes spread silently, with infectious prions present even in animals that show no symptoms. While there is no confirmed human risk, researchers ...

A Dying Star Could Create a New Universe Instead of a Black Hole

June 14, 2026 What if some black holes aren’t black holes at all? A new theoretical study suggests that when a massive star collapses, it might not form a singularity hidden behind an event horizon. Instead, the ...

Beneath Our Feet Lies a Fungal Superhighway Stretching 68 Quadrillion Miles

June 15, 2026 Beneath our feet lies a vast hidden fungal superhighway that helps sustain much of life on Earth—and scientists have now mapped it for the first time. Researchers estimate that these underground ...